Arguing from incredulity! Not a very good start! 
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/6868/98cm.jpg
I have to fess up here, that image does contain dust (but it’s believed to have been kicked there during “installation of the Cosmic Ray Detector may have caused it to get there.”
http://www.moonhoax.lipi.at/dust.htm
This is a better one:
http://www.apollo-projekt.de/images/as11-40-5920.jpg
We were posting simultaneously.
When the incredulity comes from years of repeated arguments about this subject, arguments in which the so-called conspiracy has been firmly and roundly debunked, yes, the argument from incredulity is a good start. You’ve been pointed to probably the best collection of arguments debunking the conspiracy theory at the Bad Astronomer site. Argument’s over…you’re late to the party. Just because you weren’t around for the original argument doesn’t mean it’s invalid or that you have some great new insight.
Not when the facts massively support one side. There’s unsupported incredulity, and then there’s incredulity that exists because one side has all the facts, and the other doesn’t even make sense, much less have facts backing them up.
If I understand, the dust was thrown up and behaved in a fashion similar to how pebbles behaved. WHen the lander’s rockets were just starting to affect the dust (because it was still pretty high up), the dust was thrown in little arcs, up and away and down. As the lander got closer, those pebble-like arcs grew larger. At some point, the arcs were large enough that it was as though pebbles were being tossed outside the landing area of the lander (that is, if the lander’s pads were 10 feet from the engine, the dust particles were being tossed pebblelike 11 feet). As long as that happened before the zenith of the arc was still below the landing pads, then nothing would land on the pads. As the lander came in, those arcs grew bigger, and nothing landed on the pads themselves.
That’s pretty cool; I had no idea! Consider ignorance fought.
Daniel
I thought you had to convince me? Isn’t that how it works? You ‘believers’ tell the ‘old agnosty’ the error of his ways and all that.
As I say, I don’t think you’d have pads you could eat your tea off of after the mini-dust storm they’d held 1 hour before… and every explanation I’ve ever read has never answered it properly.
best
You’re still applying ‘everyday’ physics to a decidedly non-everyday situation, namely being on the moon. The only force being exerted on the dust at the lunar lander site is that of the rocket exhaust, which points away from the lander at all times, i.e. there are no (or little to no) dust particles with a vector towards the lander. Just picture it as landing in a lose pile of small rocks – how would the rocks, once blown away, get back to their point of origin?
And the only thing that makes dust behave different from rocks is the atmosphere. Of which there’s a notable lack on the moon.
From what I gather the original lunar lander (LEM) weighed 14696 kg (1) while a modern Bell 206 Helicopter weighs 1451 kg (2). Although the gravity of the moon is 1/6 that of the earth, the LEM would have weighed 10 times more than a helicopter and would have needed at least 1.666 (3) times the thrust on the moon as a helicopter would need on earth (In fact, according to the sites below, a Bell 206 generates 177 N/m2 while the LEM Decent boosters generated 44.4 kN, which is 25 (4) times the thrust)
However I think you have it with your last statement. Space is a vacuum but the moon (which is a moon, not a planet) does still have gravity. When a pile of talc is blown around on earth, the tiny particles meet with atmospheric resistance and form little poofy clouds. When they disperse in a vacuum there is nothing to provide such resistance and therefore no poofy clouds. The super fine dust flys out in a wide arc not much different than coarser dust would, just a lot farther. Therefore there was quite simply, no dust to settle on the LEM feet.
(1) Apollo Lunar Module - Wikipedia
(2) Bell 206 - Wikipedia
(3) I hope my math is right on this one (1/6 x 10).
(4) I’m pretty sure my math is right here though (4440 / 177).
But not ALL of it. There’s no way that that mini-hurricane of dust under that lander would not have left even a teeny-weeny touch of dust on a pad. I’ll grant you the rocket would have blown a good 90-95% of it away as you say… but what about the edges of the rocket where the thrust isn’t as strong.
Do you not think there would have been ‘clouds of billowing dust’ around it? Don’t forget, it’s ‘talc-like’ dust, not sand, grit or the like.
Thing is, there really wouldn’t be clouds as you know them here, living all your life in atmosphere. Only dust that would go toward the lander would be particles that bounced from other, heavier particles. That would be very, vary small number of them. Certainly not enough to see on the photo of such resolution as linked.
There would not have been ‘clouds’ of anything. You’re repeatedly making comparisons with the behaviour of dust in air. In a vacuum, dust falls like a rock - like a hammer (and like a feather, which also falls like a hammer) - it doesn’t billow around at all.
No. It’s not going to “billow”; there’s no air to make it billow.
And what makes you think there ISN’T a ‘teeny weeny’ amount of dust on them ? Those photos aren’t all that close up.
Both ‘clouds of billowing dust’ and ‘mini-hurricanes’ need an atmosphere. There’s no distinction between ‘talc-like’ dust and sand or grit besides the size of individual particles, which only affects behaviour in an atmosphere. They just basically act like little pebbles thrown outwards, and there’s no reason for any of them to come back besides maybe having forgotten its wallet or something.
Um, no. No clouds, no billowing, no storm, no hurricane, nothing that would require a reaction of the dust with an atmosphere. In fact, nothing that would impede the momentum of the dust at all.
View the astronauts walking around, one would think that their footsteps would stir up clouds of billowing dust but they don’t. The displaced dust simply flys away and falls like sand or pebbles.
The only difference between dust and bolders is size: once the atmosphere is removed and gravity reduced they both act the same just at different scales and I can’t imagine a billowing cloud of bolders.
Isn’t there actually film footage of the moon landings that don’t show up the stars either? This Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy: Bad TV part of the BA article only seems to address still photographs.
As everybody is trying to tell you - you are credulously falling for the oft-refuted ranting of charlatans with books to sell and loons with no knowledge of, well frankly, anything.
Who do you think took all the pictures of the Earth from the moon? Or was Apollo 8 a hoax as well. Who and what did countless amateur radio hams as well as scientists around the world track, along with the distance/time delay of the radio signals consonant with the distance, there and back? Or were the civilian scientists at Jodrell Bank also in on this?
Who put the laser reflector on the moon? Where the hell did Apollo 11 go if it didn’t go to the Moon? It went up and it did not go into orbit. Why in hell’s name would america’s enemies, including North Vietnam who they were at war with, go along with it?
Why has no-one broken ranks and exposed it? This is not like the UFO thing where many allegedly ‘in the know’ from military to the odd astronaut have broken ranks. No one has. That should tell you something.
Darwin didn’t give you a brain to waste it on arrant nonsense without even the slightest scintilla of evidence to back it up. For your own future self’s sake, stop making a fool of yourself because one day you are going to look back on this beleif and your toes are going to break curling with embarrassment.
… so the only dust we should expect to see on the feet is that which could have been propelled there directly by the descent engine’s exhaust, immediately before touching down.
The glare of the Sun on the lunar surface washes them out.
I am really surprised that the lander was that heavy! Though when i think about it, a good chunck will be ‘batterys’, water and whatever liquid the fuel was. bUt wasn’t the skin of it ‘like thick aliminium foil not capable of withstanding dust-sized meteors’? Hence my thinking ‘equiv to a helo’.
I don’t know why i didn’t think o wiki to look the lander, up, etc. :smack:
But you make my point better stronger. I’m thinking it’s ‘1/6th of a heli’ and you’re saying ‘no, the dust is 3 times worse than that’. I know ithey have different type of ‘thrust mechanicals’ but in terms of energy expended, it’s still ‘3 times more’ with 3-times more dust, agree.
I agree dust in the strong jet of the rocket would be blasted away and away… but what about around the edges to that rocket flame wheer the thrust decreases to zero. That will 'kick up a cloud that has nostrong direction.
Also, what of the dust that gets directed back upwards where it’ll rebound of the lander base. I don’t think it’d be as clean as is made out.